Coolers for AMD Athlon64: Asus StarIce vs Titan Siberia
Cooling efficiency and conclusions
To verify efficiency of the coolers, we assembled a test configuration with the Athlon64 3500+ (NewCastle) of stepping CG made in the 0.13 mk process technology (remember that Winchester processors made in the 0.09 mk process technology offer a 1/3 less heat emission). Also, to make the coolers' lives more difficult, we overclocked the processor to 2.5 GHz and raised the Vcore to 1.65V
To heat up the processor, we used BurnK7 (the Cool'n'Quiet feature disabled; although that is not important at all). As the thermo interface we used a very popular KPT-8 thermo paste (out of the tun :). So, here are the following results:
It's not difficult to make conclusions: I can't recommend Asus StarIce for purchase because of its very high noise level, high price, and the middling cooling efficiency. Titan Siberia does even worse cooling job, but among its strong points is the not high price and the big fan. Therefore, the user can be a good alternative to the "boxed" cooler. However, most Athlon 64 (and Sempron Socket754) processors sell just as boxed versions, so there aren't any weighty arguments in favor of additional spending (Titan Siberia costs around 17$).
P.S. After testing the coolers I started thinking something was going in the wrong way: looks like something was missed. In cases like that you got to relax, and the wise idea will come itself. Soon it came at last :) Just see - the Asus' cooler offers a good heat-pipe radiator but a useless fan inside the not the best case. With Titan cooler, all is the reverse: the fan is nice + the radiator is poor. Well, no use thinking too much about it - they got to be interbred :)). That's what we got after interbreeding:
Titan fastened with its own fastening mechanism proved an ideal fit upon the Asus' radiator. In the two positions we simply snap the lever, and for other two positions (more optimum) we have to put something elastic (say, a piece of rubber) between the lever and the plastic frame.
But that is not all - we still have one more Titan Siberia cooler (albeit for SocketA) whose design is coincident with the design of the cooler for Athlon 64. Understand that? That's it. We called what we produced as the Extreme Edition
You may laugh but take a look at what we invented over here. After the test, I got disappointed: it looks like it's not so easy and quick to make an efficient and noiseless cooler. It lost 10C to Zalman 7700Cu. The efficiency of the Extreme Edition did not differ from that of the single-fan version. The cause of that may be in the insufficient performance of the Asus' cooler, as well as in the non-optimum mode of blowing (without a case).
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